


Fully Informed

by forgetcanon



Series: Fully Informed / MIA Walters [1]
Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: F/M, Meddlesome Siblings, Meet the Family, The Spine on a motorcycle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 14:57:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetcanon/pseuds/forgetcanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Spine has a girlfriend. Once upon a time, he would have shared this information voluntarily. Now, it has to be pried out of him and doused in butter before it can be enjoyed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fully Informed

"Who is she?"  
  
"No."  
  
"B-but who is she?"  
  
"No."  
  
Rabbit and The Jon looked at each other.  
  
"The Spine," The Jon said after a moment. "You know how you hate it when we team up on you?"  
  
The Spine folded his newspaper. It wouldn't have seemed hurried, except that he wasn't careful enough and the paper ripped in half. Apparently he did know that he hated it when his brothers teamed up on him.  
  
He demonstrated this by standing up and throwing the torn newspaper at his brothers. While they were distracted, he vaulted over the sofa and out of the doorway at top speed.  
  
Rabbit and The Jon formulated a plan and split up.  
  
78 hours, three toppled vases, one broken kitchen table, 17 shattered glasses, 1 torched antique teak bench, and a gigantic hole in the floor of second floor library later, The Spine was pinned to the ground with The Jon holding his head onto his body and Rabbit shoving said body into a corner of the Hall of Wires. HatchWorth stood guard outside, making sure none of the humans saw fit to break them up.  
  
The Spine _really_ hated it when they teamed up.  
  
"The Spine, we have you pinned!" The Jon crowed. "Now _spill_!"  
  
The silver automaton made one last, desperate attempt to get free, managing to knock Rabbit's hat off with a flailing hand, before finally relaxing back into their grip. "Fine."  
  
They didn't loosen their grip. They knew his tricks.  
  
The Spine sighed, resigning himself to the next few hours of interrogation. "Her name is Natalia Soto. She's a grad student at UCSD, studying psychology and linguistics. I met her at the library. We've been going out for eight months. She is very pretty."  
  
The Jon, sensing that The Spine had truly surrendered, let go of his head. "What's her favorite flavor ice cream!"  
  
"I don't know."   
  
The Jon looked horrified.  
  
"Does she like cooking?" HatchWorth called from the doorway.  
  
"Yes," The Spine said. "She does."  
  
Rabbit grinned. "What's she l-look like?"  
  
The Spine glanced at QWERTY. "Picture?"  
  
QWERTY complied, bringing up a picture. She whirred closer, letting out a loud wolf-whistle. The picture was at an outside table, a cafe. A hispanic woman was looking down at the phone in her hand. Long, curly brown hair, tied back in a ponytail. Dark brown eyes. Full lips, quirked in a smile.  
  
"What happened to the bl-blondes?" Rabbit asked. "I thou-thought you liked blondes."  
  
"I didn't particularly like blondes, I just happened to date several of them in a row," The Spine said, sounding calm. Internally, he patted himself on the back for not seeing how much stress Rabbit's neck could take before his head came off.  
  
The Jon bounced in place. "She _is_ pretty! Is she nice?"  
  
"In her way," The Spine said. "She's incredibly smart."  
  
"What's her fa-favorite color?" Rabbit asked.  
  
"Cream," The Spine said.  
  
There was a pause.  
  
"Cream?" The Jon asked, sounding disgusted. The Spine made a note to warn Natalia that she already had two strikes against her. Not blonde, and now 'cream.'   
  
"Yes," The Spine said. "Cream. I asked. She said cream."  
  
"I am begin-ginning to doubt your t-taste." Rabbit frowned at the picture. "Wha-what's she grinning at?"  
  
"I sent her a funny text," The Spine said.  
  
"What did you say?" HatchWorth called.  
  
The Spine hesitated. Rabbit gave him the eye. "Oooh, Spine, getting frisky are we?"  
  
" _No_ ," The Spine said. "We are not. Because the idea of you getting frisky is _horrifying_."  
  
Rabbit rolled his eyes. "P-please, like it would be that big a deal."  
  
The Jon tapped his chin. It clinked. "You asked that one girl if you could bite her hand."  
  
"Yes," Rabbit agreed. "But I did-did it _romantically_."  
  
"She screamed a lot," The Jon continued.  
  
"Never mind that," Rabbit said, waving his hands around as though to clear the air. "The p-point is, Spi-ine, we have to meet this girl, especially-ly if you-you're getting _frisky_!"  
  
The Spine sighed. "We are _not_ getting frisky."  
  
"But we still get to meet her, cor-rect?" HatchWorth called. "Oh, here comes Steve. Hel-lo, Steve. No-thing sus-pic-ious is go-ing on."  
  
Steve had been planning to walk on by without saying a word, because getting in the middle of the robots' feuding never turned out well, but HatchWorth attempting to lie was always worth investigating. He slowed down. "What's going on?"  
  
"No-thing sus-pic-ious," HatchWorth repeated.  
  
Rabbit and The Jon had released him, and now their guards were down as they attempted to persuade Steve that he should just keep walking. The Spine took this opportunity to escape, climbing stealthily into the wires and out through one of the upper windows of the manor, walking down the road to where he stashed his motorcycle.  
  
On the way, he called Natalia. "There's something to be said about the theory that moving out always improves your relationships with your family."  
  
Natalia snorted. "What did they do this time?"  
  
"Can I come over?"  
  
"Oh, yeah, at this point I'm just beating my head against the keyboard. A distraction would be _very_ welcome."  
  
\--  
  
Meanwhile, Steve looked up the name Natalia Soto on Facebook for the bots and inadvertantly introduced Rabbit to the idea of cyberstalking. The copper automaton took to it like a duck to breadcrumbs, running upstairs to one of his many rooms and creating a Facebook account for the occasion. He friended Natalia and as many of her 'friends' as he could. Several of them accepted 'Albert Alexander Smith' immediately.  
  
Natalia Soto at 5:15 PM: urgh this paper can just go write itself.  
    Sandra Kennedy: That's the exact opposite of a threat.  
    Paul Brown: Good luck!  
    Natalia Soto: Shut up, I'm afraid that if I say something more threatening the paper will gather up it's things and leave, and then where will I be?  
    Natalia Soto: Excellent! A wild distraction appears!  
    Sandra Kennedy: Ooh, is it ~your muse~  
    Natalia Soto: NO.  
    Natalia Soto: Well, yes. BUT NO.  
    Sandra Kennedy: I'm getting mixed messages here.  
  
From this, Rabbit gathered several things.  
  
One, The Spine had gone to Natalia's house after pulling his escape routine. That meant that Natalia now knew that the other 'bots knew about her.  
  
Two, Natalia had friends that knew about The Spine. This could mean several things, such as  
  
Two A, Natalia was a gossip.  
  
Two B, Natalia and Sandra were close.  
  
Two C, Natalia was dating The Spine to date The Spine Eighth-and-a-Halfth Wonder of the World, not to date The Spine.  
  
Or some combination of the above. The Spine had made bad judgement calls in the past.  
  
Rabbit investigated further.  
  
Natalia Soto had a blog that was mostly translating song lyrics from English to Spanish and from Spanish to English. Electricity in my Soul and Captain Albert Alexander were on there as some of the earlier entries.  
  
Natalia Soto liked chinese food.  
  
Natalia Soto and Sandra Kennedy were extremely close, commenting on almost all of each other's stuff. (Albert Alexander Smith Liked one of Sandra's statuses in which she lamented about a pair of identical twins: if you have seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal.)  
  
Natalia Soto was a fan of Steam Powered Giraffe, from before The Spine could have possibly met her.  
  
Natalia Soto posted a random status two months back that said nothing but "Six months. I'm terrified and exhilarated and the luckiest girl on the face of the planet."  
  
Rabbit needed to meet her, and fast.  
  
\--  
  
Weather permitting, Natalia worked on the bench on the porch outside her apartment, laptop balanced on the arm and her lap full of a textbook. Today was no exception, and she left off glaring at her laptop to grin and wave at The Spine as he pulled up and removed his helmet.  
  
"I hate this," she said cheerfully. "I have to grade papers for a class I didn't really pay attention in when I took them and on top of that I have to finish this annotated bibliography by day after tomorrow."  
  
The Spine frowned. "Should I leave? Sounds like that's important."  
  
Natalia shrugged. "Yeah, but my advisor likes me and I'm probably going to end up doing it last minute whether or not you hang out here. And I need a distraction." She closed the textbook with a snap, putting it on the bench and following it with the laptop before she stood. The Spine carefully pulled her in and obligingly leaned down as she stood on tip-toe to kiss his cheek.  
  
"What happened this time?" She asked, leading him back to the bench and putting the book and laptop on the ground. The Spine sat gingerly. The bench hadn't collapsed under his weight in the past, but that was no guarantee for the future.  
  
"Well," The Spine said, "Rabbit and The Jon spent the last three days chasing me around the manor and eventually managed to corner me in the Hall of Wires where they interrogated me about you, but I managed to use all my wit and cunning to escape them."  
  
Natalia laughed. "No wonder you haven't called." She waited expectantly for a moment. Her smile dropped a bit. "You weren't joking at all, were you?"  
  
"No," The Spine said. "That's what happened."  
  
Natalia's lips twitched. "Did you crack under their interrogation?"  
  
"Oh yes," The Spine said. "They had me pinned down. Physically pinned down. They probably would have gotten HatchWorth to fetch some mud to rub on my suit if I resisted any more."  
  
"The evil mud," Natalia said. "The bane of the silk-wearer's existence. So, under the threat of having to get your clothes dry-cleaned, you spilled your heart and soul and told them all about me?"  
  
The Spine analyzed her body language: leaning back against the arm of the bench, arms open, head tilted, a smile. She was joking, but playfully. Not upset. Nothing in her history suggest that she would be upset, but sometimes humans surprised at the worst times.  
  
"Of course," The Spine replied, choosing to joke along with her. "I told them where you live, what your favorite food is, how you snort in your sleep-"  
  
"I do not!" Natalia accused, grinning.  
  
"You do too," The Spine said. "Like a shotgun blast. It scares me when I'm reading your books."  
  
"You're such a liar," she said, pushing at his arm. He let it move, grinning.  
  
"No, I didn't tell them that. But they know your name, your favorite color, and that you're a grad student. And what you look like. I did show them your photo."  
  
"Neat," Natalia said. "So they know I exist. What next?"  
  
The Spine frowned. "Next?"  
  
Natalia shrugged. "Well, I assume they want to meet me."  
  
"...Well, yes." If he was more flexible and less worried about the bench, The Spine might have been squirming.  
  
Natalia frowned, turning to face him completely, sitting up from her slouch. Attentive. "That was a pretty long pause for 'well, yes.'"  
  
Spine hesitated again. She still looked attentive.  
  
"...My family."  
  
"Afraid I won't approve of them?" Natalia asked.  
  
"No. I'm afraid they won't approve of you."  
  
She shrugged. "That's understandable. My parents freaked out when they thought I was a lesbian-"  
  
He loathed to cut her off, but that wasn't what he meant. "No, it isn't that. Natalia, you are not alone. You could like only girls or even like small fuzzy animals dipped in tomato juice and there would still be humans that you could associate with. But me? I have my brothers. And that's it."  
  
Natalia looked shocked.  
  
"I will live for a long time, Natalia," The Spine said quietly. "It's possible I might live forever. And the only other people that might live anywhere near as long are my brothers. They already regard my... dating habits as some sort of bizarre hobby. If you meet them, and they disapprove of you, that's probably the end."  
  
Natalia swallowed. "The end of... our relationship."  
  
The Spine nodded.  
  
She turned away from him, leaning her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fist. Her other hand tapped the bench restlessly. It was her thinking pose.  
  
The Spine tried to guess what she was feeling. Anxiety. Perhaps insult. Perhaps dread. Nothing good, anyway.  
  
"I should go," he said, standing.  
  
"No," Natalia said. "You should stay. We need to talk about this, once I sort my head out."  
  
The Spine nodded, remaining standing. After a moment she stood up, too, picking up her discarded laptop and textbook and leading him inside her apartment. She ditched the textbook on the kitchen counter, alongside her purse and a few unwashed dishes.  
  
She sat at her small kitchen table with her laptop. For humans, The Spine knew, there were varied ways of reasoning and thinking. Some humans thought better by acting our their thoughts, some by drawing diagrams. Natalia thought best by writing her thoughts out where she could see them.  
  
"Are you thirsty?" He asked.  
  
"Sure," she said. "Chai?"  
  
The Spine nodded, filling her kettle and flipping it on. When the water boiled, he poured about enough for three cups (her usual tea intake) into her flower-painted teapot, following it by the teabag. When it brewed, he poured it into a cup for her with her usual amount of milk.   
  
All through this, she typed, making faces at her keyboard that no doubt reflected what she was thinking, stopping and starting and occasionally clicking. The Spine tried to avoid looking, because he would only become curious and if he asked she would become defensive. She would tell him her conclusions when she reached them, and not a moment before.  
  
He counted off several minutes before she leaned back, glaring at what she had typed, before looking at The Spine. Her expression softened noticably, a smile tugging at her lips.  
  
"Well," she said. "Here's what I've decided.  
  
"One, I love you, as you know. I keep coming to that conclusion, most times I think about you.  
  
"Two, as much as I love you, your brothers are always going to be more important to you than I am, and that's perfectly fine. You're going to live for far longer than me, and if you don't I'm going to be rather disappointed. So yes, I've known you for eight awesome months, but that's not even a full year and you have completed a lot of those and have a lot more of those left.  
  
"Three, I would like to have more than eight months,  
  
"and Four, I would like to meet your family. If they dislike me then that will be awful. However, I would prefer that to being hidden, now that they know about me."  
  
She nodded, satisfied, and pushed herself back from the table, stretching exaggeratedly.  
  
The Spine smiled. "Well. I'm glad you love me and that you understand that my brothers are important. Would you prefer dinner or lunch?"  
  
Natalia grinned. "Smart-aleck." She retrieved her tea, standing rather closer than necessary to pick it up. Close enough to brush her arm against his in an obvious bid for him to put his arm around her shoulders. "Let's go with dinner."  
  
"HatchWorth will probably go all-out."  
  
"Neat. I hope I'll be able to take home leftovers, so even if they reject me I'll be able to sob into something delicious."  
  
Banter with Natalia was always so easy. He put his arm around her. She leaned into him.  
  
\--  
  
The Spine tried not to think about how many women his brothers had 'rejected' over the years. The statistics were not encouraging. If they weren't freaked out by the manor itself, it was The Jon's tendency to hug and assume everyone wants to go skateboarding in the Hall of Non Venomous But Still Angry Snakes, or HatchWorth's casual threats to kill their entire family if the lady didn't like his food, or Rabbit's... Rabbit. Most things about Rabbit, really.  
  
Well, if it happened, it happened.  
  
He asked Annie if she would like to meet his girlfriend some time next week over dinner.  
  
Annie smiled. "I'll let everyone know."


End file.
